Serious Mozzarella
Special Victims Unit
Well, yeah, when you actually prepare to fight him...
Nobody expects the Tonberry.
Final Fantasy VII Journal (Ahem...Dagger Dias)
- Thread starter The 1-2-3 Killam
- Start date
Well, yeah, when you actually prepare to fight him...
Nobody expects the Tonberry.
Danger Burger
Thread Killer
Raging my way through FF2 at the mo, finished FF1 a few days ago. Plan on getting through as far as FF7 before moving on to FF13-2 so i can officially have all games cleared. Thank god for unemployment.
Serious Mozzarella
Special Victims Unit
12, 13, and 13-2 suck.
That's the thing, I didn't prepare for the FF7 counterpart of them. I was already maxed out. The FF6 one did catch me off guard though.
I'm sorry. FF2 is the worst in the series. Play the NES version if you can, it's easier to increase your stats in that one. The PSX and GBA versions were pure torture. Story is nice but gameplay is horrendous. What was your party in FF1?
13 doesn't suck, it's just far too linear. Haven't played 13-2 yet but it is next on my list.
12 does suck and so does X-2.... Are you kidding me though? X is amazing, probably the 5th best in the series.
Aeon Mathix
Has Ascended
Tales of Symphonia is easily one of the most underrated games ever. 2 discs full of awesomeness. I spent months on that game and didn't have a life.
As for Final Fantasy 7, still my favorite in the series. Although others like 10 and 8 were awesome as well. I regret selling my ps3 (needed money) just so i can play FF7 again.
Danger Burger
Thread Killer
Two sucks? I'm finding it alot more fun than one so far. I went with the standard war/thief/black/white, maybe that hindered my fun? Loved the similarities between one and nine though, even in the music, great! Two seems great so far, love the levelling system. Alot more fun than one, alot harder too! Still cant get my head around the lack of knowing where the hell i'm going though, crappy maps!
Have to agree here, i though twelve was the worst of the series imho, no depth to the characters or the story line, i had no idea why i was fighting who i was. Side quests and items to sell were a nice touch though. Hated the battle system, lack of freedom etc. The only one of the series i will never return to.
13-2 seems good from the little ive played (chpt. 1 so far), fast paced battles are nice... Game is less linear and has randon encounters... fixes some problems with 13!!
I played through it many times but none were more memorable than my Mania run in 2009. I never bothered to try it until then, glad I did. I loved the challenge, making it more enjoyable than my normal runs in previous years. Greatest game ever, even better than FF7. Everything about it is perfect, especially the beautiful 100+ track soundtrack! What characters did you use? I tended to play as Lloyd or Zelos with generally Regal, Colette, and Raine. I never used Sheena outside of the Elemental fights but everyone else saw some use.
Yes, 2 sucks. It is horrible other than the story. 1 has more replay value than any other game in the series and a generic party does take away from the fun. I am partial to Warrior, Red Mage, White Mage, Black Mage as a party. If you want a real challenge, try four White Mages. Four Warriors was fun too. I attempted four Red Mages once but they are too expensive and I got fed up with having to come up with so much money each time I reached a new town.
12 isn't the worst but I do put it toward the bottom. 2 is the worst, and X-2 is not far behind it. I look forward to 13-2 and plan on purchasing it soon. I'm saving up for something special for the wifey with our 2 year anniversary coming up so that takes priority over games for the next month or so.
Serious Mozzarella
Special Victims Unit
Really, if you ignore the storyline for X-2, it's actually pretty good. One of my favorite battle systems in the series.
Yes because we all know FF and DQ are the same series....
Which raises a question for all of the Dragon Quest 5 fans, now that the game has been brought up. Bianca, Nera/Flora, or Debora?
The story itself isn't what ruined it for me, it was a combination of a few things. The battle system was a cool take on FF3/FF5's job classes and I really liked the Floral Fallal dressphere in particular. I could have done without a good amount of the content, and that's always a red flag when rating a game. I was also turned off by how nearly impossible it was to achieve a perfect completion without following a walkthrough word for word to make sure you didn't miss A THING or risk starting over again on the next run. Sphere Break was pure torture. Then there's Paine. I hated her and she is one of my least favorite characters in the series. A playable male would have been nice, but the all female party did somewhat help the game stand out. Once I reached perfect completion I decided I'd never replay the game again.
Serious Mozzarella
Special Victims Unit
She is literally Auron. There's no difference between her and Auron save for some boobs, a vagina, and some sexy clothes.
More like there is no difference between her and Auron save for the fact that Auron is a badass and she is a boring worthless character.
Mr. Artistic guy
Better Off This Way
12's my favourite tbh. I suppose you can argue there's little depth to character but I would take that over the outright annoying-ness of, well, the majority of characters from other series. Tidus' whining and daddy issues, Rikkus general oddness, Wakkas blatant racism, Snow's hewn from an 80s American action film persona, Hope's... all of him, Sazh's being the token black guy claim to fame.
When it comes to the story on 12 though, I don't see how it can be argued not to be good. It keeps you guessing through-out if the chief antagonist is truly bad, sending you many mixed messages. The answer only really comes certifiably towards the end. The whole game feels like it's set to a clock as you must complete your task before there is war between the two two massive sides, the story set primarily in the middle of where this conflict would take place. This sets urgency and a driving feel towards each affirmative action you take trying to avoid the outcome of war. It's what mitigates the apparent lack of depth for characters, although I wouldn't consider it a lack of depth, more a lack of personality. Basch, Ashe, Penelo, Vaan are all frankly a bit bland, but the duo of Balthier and Fran counter-act that, as does, like I said, the grand driving story.
The battle system is also something I've never understood people to criticize. It's a perfectly weighted system. Gambits allow that you may be as active or as inactive as you wish to be during a battle. You can decide every move or walk away and leave the pad. Doing so, though, would mean lots of time spent trying to figure out your tactics, adjusting your gambits for different types of enemies. Either way you have to put hard graft in to get out a good result. There's plenty of situations where you can't just select attack continually hoping to beat out a victory before the enemy narrowly manages to sqaush you. Add to that the massively vast amount of spells and techniques and you have a great pallet from which to draw and experiement. Then you can add to that the cool aspect of quickenings. There's only really two valid criticisms I can see for the FF12 fighting system:
It's overcomplicated. - But as I said, not really an issue. You can make it as easy or as complicated as you want, dictate the pace, introduce as many or as few techniques as you wish.
It's not traditional. - Which is fine if you just don't like it simply because it doesn't follow the traditional turn-based system. But if you want to use that to claim that it's bad? Nah, truth be told, it's better. In fact, the moment you press x, it effectively becomes turn-based anyway.
Visually it was a massive improvement over the last release, although that was some time previous. Some of the cut-scenes don't look out of place side-by-side with current graphics, including the amazing 15 minute opening video.
What really draws me in to the game, though, is the massively non-linear approach to play. Not only do you not have to go where they want you to go, you can end up going somewhere that your level dictates you weren't supposed to go until much later in the game, increasing anticipation for when that is no longer the case. The sheer amount of different creatures is positively mouth-watering also. As if all the creatures that you encountered normally weren't enough, there is marks (creatures petitioned to be hunted, epicly better than that 13 mark system where most of the monster hang around one big field), rare game (80 creatures which require certain fulfilments to be completed before they will appear to you), you have bosses, optional bosses, and even espers (summons, aeons, whichever you prefer). On top of that, you have to beat a certain number of all non-boss/esper/mark creatures for you to be able to find out more information about then and possible loot they hold which can be sold and combined to make cool things.
The loot is something else altogether which I loved. Not only do creatures drop loot, not only can that loot be a range of different things for each monster with the added element of whether you stole it or simply captured upon defeating a creature, with more rare loot being more valuable and creatures being able to drop anything from a pebble to rare armour or weapons to restorative or damage-dealing items, not only can you sell this loot for money to buy more useful things, not only can you acquire certain items by selling a certain amount of different types of loot, but in some cases for some items, the only means by which you may gain them is to get many pieces of rare loot from different rare monsters and sell them.
As for the things I don't like about the game... the similar sprites for different genus of monsters annoys me. The way in which the -nir or horse-like creatures, for example, will be adapted from one area to another is by simply changing the design slightly. That's it. They will have the same mannerisms, the same fighting style. I think it would be better if each creature was more individual, even separate from other monsters of the same genus. The only other way I would improve the game would just be to have more of everything, more items, more loot.
I can understand how you would not like 12 if you are a traditionalist and don't enjoy the newer fighting system or if you prefer the more child-friendly stories and characters, I can understand if you don't like it because you have a short attention span and lack the will to grind through areas for hours to learn the next point of the story, but I don't honestly know how anybody can think the game was anything less than very good. It offered so much, if it was lacking in one aspect, there was ten other by which it prevailed triumphantly. I've played through Final Fantasy since X up to and including XIII-2 and honestly I don't think any of the other games are in the same league, and I haven't even covered the licences system yet.
Ten is great, I enjoyed playing every minute of it, but once again a bit too linear, the characters put me off a bit, and it fails in pure depth of game-play in comparison. And it's not as if every character in that was exactly riveting, Yuna, Lulu, Auron were all truth be told, balls on the table dull. I won't even mention X-2 and for my sentiments on 13 onward, although I completed both games:
[YOUTUBE]e2z7vHsqq_Q[/YOUTUBE]
The terminology in 13 itself is annoying and confusing enough. Took me hours of game-time to completely determine what each -'cie actually was. I actually don't dislike the fighting system in 13 but it's one of few things I don't dislike. The only aspect I disagree with is that unlike in previous installments, 13 is the first game where you can't reduce fighting to basic game play. In X you can attack on an individual basis, as you can in 12, in 13 no matter how you manage your own paradigms, you will only be controlling one character and although you can set roles for their characters, you can't control exactly what they do. Not having full control over how I want to fight my own battles is frustrating. 13 is awesome scenery culminating in a very average story, unrelated characters and an all-round underwhelming game.
Yeah. So. Yeah.
When it comes to the story on 12 though, I don't see how it can be argued not to be good. It keeps you guessing through-out if the chief antagonist is truly bad, sending you many mixed messages. The answer only really comes certifiably towards the end. The whole game feels like it's set to a clock as you must complete your task before there is war between the two two massive sides, the story set primarily in the middle of where this conflict would take place. This sets urgency and a driving feel towards each affirmative action you take trying to avoid the outcome of war. It's what mitigates the apparent lack of depth for characters, although I wouldn't consider it a lack of depth, more a lack of personality. Basch, Ashe, Penelo, Vaan are all frankly a bit bland, but the duo of Balthier and Fran counter-act that, as does, like I said, the grand driving story.
The battle system is also something I've never understood people to criticize. It's a perfectly weighted system. Gambits allow that you may be as active or as inactive as you wish to be during a battle. You can decide every move or walk away and leave the pad. Doing so, though, would mean lots of time spent trying to figure out your tactics, adjusting your gambits for different types of enemies. Either way you have to put hard graft in to get out a good result. There's plenty of situations where you can't just select attack continually hoping to beat out a victory before the enemy narrowly manages to sqaush you. Add to that the massively vast amount of spells and techniques and you have a great pallet from which to draw and experiement. Then you can add to that the cool aspect of quickenings. There's only really two valid criticisms I can see for the FF12 fighting system:
It's overcomplicated. - But as I said, not really an issue. You can make it as easy or as complicated as you want, dictate the pace, introduce as many or as few techniques as you wish.
It's not traditional. - Which is fine if you just don't like it simply because it doesn't follow the traditional turn-based system. But if you want to use that to claim that it's bad? Nah, truth be told, it's better. In fact, the moment you press x, it effectively becomes turn-based anyway.
Visually it was a massive improvement over the last release, although that was some time previous. Some of the cut-scenes don't look out of place side-by-side with current graphics, including the amazing 15 minute opening video.
What really draws me in to the game, though, is the massively non-linear approach to play. Not only do you not have to go where they want you to go, you can end up going somewhere that your level dictates you weren't supposed to go until much later in the game, increasing anticipation for when that is no longer the case. The sheer amount of different creatures is positively mouth-watering also. As if all the creatures that you encountered normally weren't enough, there is marks (creatures petitioned to be hunted, epicly better than that 13 mark system where most of the monster hang around one big field), rare game (80 creatures which require certain fulfilments to be completed before they will appear to you), you have bosses, optional bosses, and even espers (summons, aeons, whichever you prefer). On top of that, you have to beat a certain number of all non-boss/esper/mark creatures for you to be able to find out more information about then and possible loot they hold which can be sold and combined to make cool things.
The loot is something else altogether which I loved. Not only do creatures drop loot, not only can that loot be a range of different things for each monster with the added element of whether you stole it or simply captured upon defeating a creature, with more rare loot being more valuable and creatures being able to drop anything from a pebble to rare armour or weapons to restorative or damage-dealing items, not only can you sell this loot for money to buy more useful things, not only can you acquire certain items by selling a certain amount of different types of loot, but in some cases for some items, the only means by which you may gain them is to get many pieces of rare loot from different rare monsters and sell them.
As for the things I don't like about the game... the similar sprites for different genus of monsters annoys me. The way in which the -nir or horse-like creatures, for example, will be adapted from one area to another is by simply changing the design slightly. That's it. They will have the same mannerisms, the same fighting style. I think it would be better if each creature was more individual, even separate from other monsters of the same genus. The only other way I would improve the game would just be to have more of everything, more items, more loot.
I can understand how you would not like 12 if you are a traditionalist and don't enjoy the newer fighting system or if you prefer the more child-friendly stories and characters, I can understand if you don't like it because you have a short attention span and lack the will to grind through areas for hours to learn the next point of the story, but I don't honestly know how anybody can think the game was anything less than very good. It offered so much, if it was lacking in one aspect, there was ten other by which it prevailed triumphantly. I've played through Final Fantasy since X up to and including XIII-2 and honestly I don't think any of the other games are in the same league, and I haven't even covered the licences system yet.
Ten is great, I enjoyed playing every minute of it, but once again a bit too linear, the characters put me off a bit, and it fails in pure depth of game-play in comparison. And it's not as if every character in that was exactly riveting, Yuna, Lulu, Auron were all truth be told, balls on the table dull. I won't even mention X-2 and for my sentiments on 13 onward, although I completed both games:
[YOUTUBE]e2z7vHsqq_Q[/YOUTUBE]
The terminology in 13 itself is annoying and confusing enough. Took me hours of game-time to completely determine what each -'cie actually was. I actually don't dislike the fighting system in 13 but it's one of few things I don't dislike. The only aspect I disagree with is that unlike in previous installments, 13 is the first game where you can't reduce fighting to basic game play. In X you can attack on an individual basis, as you can in 12, in 13 no matter how you manage your own paradigms, you will only be controlling one character and although you can set roles for their characters, you can't control exactly what they do. Not having full control over how I want to fight my own battles is frustrating. 13 is awesome scenery culminating in a very average story, unrelated characters and an all-round underwhelming game.
Yeah. So. Yeah.
FF 13 is easily the worst FF I've ever played, and one of the most disappointing games of all time for me. First FF on the PS3, coming off of FF 12, a great game just with a lackluster story and Square-Enix completely shits the bed and produces a horribly linear and unexciting game. I didn't care at all about any of the characters, there was very little exploration (the hallmark of a FF game), and IMO a worse combat system than FF 12, so not even that could save it.
Serious Mozzarella
Special Victims Unit
Taking away from the subjectiveness that is badass, Auron is just as boring. Add to the fact that like 80% of his lines are forced and cheesy ("this is MY story"), it makes for a pretty terrible Mary Sue of a character all around.
Not that I'm making a defense for Payne. She's just as boring, but you were using Auron as a counter-example. I'd rather sit through more Khimari family-drama than listen to Auron tell stories about stories.
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Only have NJ World now!
Never played a FF game in my life but I played Chrono Trigger and loved it. Which FF game should I start off with guys? I hear VII's the best one.
7, 9, and X are the best out of the modern ones so I'd start with one of them if you cannot get past the oldschool graphics of the old ones.... Otherwise I would recommend 4 or 6. 1 is fun too if you use the right party.
6 or 7 and don't let anyone tell you differently.
The 1-2-3 Killam
Mid-Card Championship Winner
Don't you dare put X and X-2 in the same boat. Don't...you...dare.
I agree. It wasn't THAT bad until I played III. Nothing is every truly good again after you've played III...
I have to agree. It wasn't my favorite by any stretch of the imagination, and I know I've come down on it pretty hard in the past, but I actually didn't mind it. I've always heard "once you get through 20 hours of terrrible it opens up and gets fun", but I really enjoyed the movie...erm, game...up to that point as well. Classic Japanese "what the fuck is happening" nonsense, but not bad. I think it was certainly pretty enough keep going. And yes, it does open up.
I still wouldn't play it again.
X is amazing. True story.
I find it hilarious whenever somebody pulls the linear card on a Final Fantasy game. SqEx has been making playable movies for just about as long as I can remember. Even III, which in my estimation is battling for "best RPG of all time" in just about every circle of gamers out there, is pretty linear when you stack it against other classics like Chrono Trigger. Even those FF games that don't feel linear are really just point-a-to-point-b gaming with a lot of junk thrown in the way to give you the appearance of deviation.
That I will give you. But ignoring a FF game's story is like seeing the Dark Knight Rises and ignoring that Batman is in it. SqEx has made its bread and butter off story-telling. Now Square in its prime, without that ass of an -Enix attached to it...that's a different story.
That's because you're a god.
Crisis Core and Dirge of Cerberus, and don't let anyone tell you differently.
IN OTHER NEWS.....I'M BAAAACK!
Serious Mozzarella
Special Victims Unit
